Products

• 2009 fashion news - Tom Ford to unveil new Bois Moarocain perfume during Selfridges centenary

  
  10 June 2009
  
  

  Tom Ford's Bois Marocain Eau de Parfum to launch at Selfridges

  The ex Gucci creative director is set to emerge at the luxury designer and beauty hall to help celebrate 100 years of deluxe shopping for customers and to help promote his new scent, Bois Moarocain.

  His personal appearance is set for 5.30pm, and will help endorse his scent which is exclusive to Selfridges.

  Ford’s latest private blend fragrance, Bois Moarocain, creates a bespoke unisex scent which is a rich blend of earthy hues and seductive aromas, and contains top notes of Madagascan black pepper, cypress and bergamot. It also provides essences from the root of the Thuya tree, which has been linked to a mysterious and intense scent of the earth.

  The packaging is inspired by the dark brown glass colouring of the apothecary bottles used in perfume laboratories, with a weighty and architectural look.

  Ford however is also no stranger to publicity originally attracting media attention back in 2006 by appearing on the front cover of Vanity Fair fully clothed alongside A-list clients and friends Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson, who were both nude.

  After Ford parted company with the Gucci (and YSL) brand back in early 2004, he set up his own named label following his quick departure. This includes an illustrious line of menswear, eyewear, and both men and women's accessories and beauty including the range Tom Ford Beauty.

  Private blend
  edp spray 50ml / 1.7oz £100.00/ 140 Euro
  edp decanter 250ml / 8.3 oz £245.00 / 350 Euro
  STOCKISTS - 0870 034 2566

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Madonna's boyfriend has appeared in a sexy new advert for Dolce and Gabbana

  
  09 June 2009
  

   

  

  Jesus Luz - who began dating the pop superstar earlier this year after meeting her on a steamy shoot for America's W magazine - stars alongside Eva Herzigova, David Gandy, Julienne Quevenne, Adam Senn and Noah Mills in the boxing-inspired shoot for the Italian fashion house's Autumn/Winter collection.
  
  The campaign was shot in historical Brooklyn boxing sanctuary Gleason's Gym - where Mohammad Ali and Mike Tyson once trained - and photographer Steven Klein took inspiration from 1960 Italian movie 'Rocco e I Suoi Fratelli', about a family torn apart by love.
  
  The campaign also includes an underwear advertisement - shot by Mariano Vivanco - which features five swimmers from the Italian national team posing at the iconic Circolo Aniene de Roma pool in Rome.
  
  The advert will be featured in magazines in Italy, Britain, France, Germany and Spain later this month.
  
  Jesus is not the only star to have recently featured in a campaign for a top fashion house.
  
  'Harry Potter' actress Emma Watson makes her modelling debut for Burberry's autumn/winter 2009-10 collection.
  
  Legendary photographer Mario Testino shot the pictures - which will go live from August - in various areas of London, including at Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.
  
  It is thought she agreed to appear in the shots as she is close friends with Burberry's creative director Christopher Bailey.
  
  Christopher said: "I wanted the images to represent both the rich history and the modernity of the Burberry brand, while at the same time reflecting a quiet beauty, timelessness and strength that is particularly significant today."

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - A global Vogue celebration of fashion

  
  09 June 2009
  

  
  In a bold global initiative the international editions of VOGUE will be partnering with designers, department stores and boutiques to create Fashion’s Night Out, an evening extravaganza to be held around the world on Thursday 10th September 2009.
  
  From London to Paris, New York to Mumbai, and Beijing to Milan, VOGUE editors, models, celebrities and retailers will gather to celebrate the fashion industry and to raise shopping spirits as they take part in their respective cities’ special events. Fashion’s Night Out is a far-reaching project intended to emphasise the creativity, pleasure and joy that fashion offers.
  
  Alexandra Shulman, editor of British VOGUE, comments, “This worldwide activity is to remind us all that fashion is to be enjoyed and to mark the contribution that the shopping environment makes to all our lives. We’re delighted to be in a position at VOGUE to undertake this enterprise and to bring retailers and shoppers together in central London for this unprecedented feel-good occasion. In these difficult economic times we want to reward the spirit of enterprise and imagination that the fashion industry encapsulates.”

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Graduate Fashion Week: Monday 8th June

  
  09 June 2009
  

  University of Central Lancashire: A model wears a design by Gemma Murphy

  University of Westminster: A model wears a design by Kitty Ng

  Nottingham Trent University: A model wears a design by Ana Belen Merono

  UCA Rochester: A model wears a design by Amanda Abela

  University of Salford: A model wears a design by Sairah Bahno Nawaz

   

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Carla Bruni-Sarkozy and Michelle Obama - the first ladies of fashion

  
  09 June 2009
  
  

  Michelle Obama and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy together Photo: AFP

  Never mind that there was a French military band playing in the background, for a moment the D-Day images that the cameras were capturing in Caen became surreally interchangeable with shots from a catwalk show.

  Two tall women, one of them a model, were swinging in step in classic “paired” runway formation. Both were almost identically dressed in knee-length cream with belts, bare legs and heels. They could almost have been modelling some designers’ collection named “First Lady Spring 2009”.

  Undoubtedly the choice of colour worn by Mrs Obama and Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy was a coincidence. Hell would surely freeze before two such self-confident dressers would confer over what to wear.

  Certainly, there will be some questions asked over whether a light, summery colour is disrespectful on a sombre day of remembrance.

  Sarah Brown stayed with the tradition of sober attire, safely putting her out of the way of fashion attention.

  As for the other two, their

  Caen encounter was the sequel to their first-round meeting at the G8 in Strasbourg, where — to either their amusement or embarrassment — both women turned up wearing coats with large pussycat bow necklines.

  On that occasion, the outcome may not necessarily have been to Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy’s liking.

  Mrs Obama, the international new girl, was wearing a cabbage-rose print outfit from the American designer Thakoon and won rave reviews.

  By contrast, Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy stuck to the demure greys and flat shoes she had so far judged necessary to counterbalance her colourful past and shorter husband. Standing next to Mrs Obama, she found the American had a two-inch advantage on her. So at this fashion face-off, it’s fascinating to see how things have changed.

  The French president’s wife chose Dior again, but dropped the grey in favour of a youthfully chic and flattering cap-sleeved ivory satin sheath with a gathered neckline – just the sort of arm-revealing dress Michelle Obama has made her signature.

  However, the American First Lady chose to relinquish what her husband jokingly called her “right to bare arms” for the day, choosing to put a coat by Narcisco Rodriguez over a dress, with a belt by Givenchy.

  The most significant detail of all, however, is found in the two pairs of shoes on the Caen red carpet. Mrs Obama wore silver Jimmy Choos. But for the first time since marrying, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy was seen wearing heels.

  As all women know, when preparing to meet one’s fashion nemesis, your diminutive husband’s sensitivities just have to take second place.

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Closet Thinker: Fashion goes back to the futurists

  
  09 June 2009
  
  

  Photo: Hannah Rouch. Mio Matsumoto. Full Stop

  The futurists, he declared, would celebrate ‘a new beauty, the beauty of speed’; the movement’s artists would ‘glorify war – the world’s only hygiene’, and sweep away the art forms of previous generations, in a triumphant uprising of youth: ‘For too long has Italy been a dealer in secondhand clothes. We will free Italy from her innumerable museums, which cover her like countless cemeteries.’

  An early member of the Italian Fascist party, Marinetti went on to support Mussolini; but his politics seem not to have deterred a number of today’s fashion designers from citing futurism in their current collections. Who knows whether they’ve embarked upon an in-depth study of the manifesto – a document that will presumably be available at Tate Modern when its ‘Futurism’ exhibition opens next week – but it does provide a context for several leading designers’ work this season.

  Missoni’s spring/summer collection includes prints inspired by Italian futurist art (in particular Dottori’s ‘aero-paintings’); and the hi-tech futurism displayed at Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, Gareth Pugh and Alexander McQueen seems of a piece with Marinetti’s advocacy of technological innovation and slick urban industry.

  ‘We want no part of it, the past,’ he wrote in his manifesto, ‘we the young and strong futurists!’ Of course, however passionate the commitment to a vision of the future, it can still have a distinct whiff of the past.

  Gareth Pugh’s version of futurism is a sci-fi fantasy, with dresses that hover somewhere between costume designs for Predator and historical drama, encompassing medieval armour and Elizabeth ruffs, mixed up with extraterrestrial reptilian scales.

  As for Francisco Costa’s current collection for Calvin Klein: he uses the silvery semi-sheer fabrics of an eroticised Hollywood spaceage movie, the kind where beautiful heroines display a flash of nipple alongside the blaze of their laser-guns.

  Marinetti never went as fast as he had hoped – in fact, he wrote his futurist manifesto after crashing his car into a ditch to avoid two cyclists – and his poems and plays have mostly lapsed into obscurity.

  It remains to be seen whether fashion’s latest take on futurism will survive beyond this summer, or sink, deflated, into a morass of discarded clothes.

  Right now I’m more intrigued by the report that three astronauts at the International Space Station have been watching the remake of Star Trek on a laptop, thereby proving that the past is always present in the future.

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Emma Watson as the new face of Burberry

  
  09 June 2009
  
  

  Emma Watson stars in the autumn/ winter 2009/10 advertising campaign. Photo: Burberry/Testino
  

  Emma Watson stars in the autumn/ winter 2009/10 advertising campaign. Photo: BURBERRY/ TESTINO

  With dark, smoky eye-make up and windswept hair, Emma Watson looks a far cry from the young Harry Potter heroine Hermione Granger in her latest incarnation as the “face” of British fashion label Burberry.

  The 19 year-old actress confirms a sophisticated and grown-up look in the images, as she models signature items – such as the classic trench coat and accessories, adorned by the iconic Burberry check, from the heritage brand’s forthcoming autumn/winter 2009/10 collection.

  

  Emma Watson stars in the autumn/ winter 2009/10 advertising campaign. Photo: BURBERRY/ TESTINO

  Watson, who is carving out a figure as a leading style icon – caught the eye of Burberry’s creative director, the Yorkshireman Christopher Bailey, who said: “Having known and admired the lovely Emma Watson for some time, she was the obvious choice for this campaign. Emma has a classic beauty, a great character and a modern edge. Her charm and intellect and brilliant sense of fun made the whole shoot feel like a picnic on the Thames.”

  The advertising campaign, which was shot by celebrated fashion photographer Mario Testino and directed by Bailey, was set in Westminster, central London, home to Burberry’s new global headquarters at Horseferry House, SW1.

  In one image, the River Thames is clearly visible in the background, conveying what Bailey calls a ‘wonderfully historic part of London’ to reflect the rich history and modernity of the Burberry brand.

  Last month, the label announced that it will show its Burberry Prorsum collection for spring/summer 2010 as part of London Fashion Week in September – forsaking Milan Fashion Week where the brand has shown for the past eight years.

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Fashion Designer Vera Wang Headed to Dancing?

  
  09 June 2009
  

  

  2009 fashion news  – Fashion Designer Vera Wang Headed to Dancing

  Los Angeles (E! Online) – Dancing With the Stars is getting a little more fashionable.

  A source tells E! News that designer Vera Wang has signed on to compete for next season's disco ball trophy...

  Wang, who will be 60 by the time the next round of waltzing kicks off in the fall, rose from Vogue editor to one of the world's most famous wedding dress designers. She not only dresses celebs on the red carpet now, but she has her own home collection, plus a lower-priced clothing collection at Kohl's.

  As a young girl, Wang trained as a professional figure skater. She later designed costumes for Nancy Kerrigan and Michelle Kwan. Another famous figure skater, Kristi Yamaguchi, won season six of DWTS.

  A rep for Wang did not immediately comment. As is usually the case, an ABC rep declined to comment on casting.

  ABC just announced today that season nine will premiere with a three-night, five-hour extravaganza on Sept. 21.

   

  (Yahoo fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Berlin Wall graffiti returns as leather fashion

  
  09 June 2009
  
  

  2009 fashion news – Models wear leather dress by German designer Daniel Rodan during a promotion for the 'Mauerkleider

  BERLIN (Reuters Life!) – Daniel Rodan, Berlin's leather fashion designer to the stars, unveiled a new collection of Berlin Wall art-themed clothing on Tuesday as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Cold War barrier.

  The leather dresses and menswear feature art from the East Side Gallery, the 1,300 meter-long (4,265 feet) stretch of the Wall painted by 118 artists from 21 countries in 1990. Its graffiti art quickly came to symbolize the Wall itself.

  One revealing mini-dress shows a famous image of the "Trabi," the classic East German automobile, breaking through the concrete landmark that divided Berlin during the Cold War.

  Rodan, whose clients include television and singing star David Hasselhoff and singer Tina Turner, said tackling a political subject was something new.

  "Bringing together these three things: the political event, fashion design, and the art of the East Side Gallery, and then making sure the clothes fit on the celebrities -- it was a real challenge," Rodan told a news conference.

  The leather outfits will be worn by prominent musicians and athletes at events during the coming months, then auctioned off for charity after the 20th anniversary celebrations on November 9.

  "It's great that we can now have fun with things which previously were simply a catastrophe," said the Berlin cabaret artist Chin Meyer at the presentation. "We have to be artistically creative with things we find painful."

  Other new designs presented by Rodan included barbed wire made of leather as a sexy fashion accessory.

  Berlin's year-long celebration of the fall of the Wall in 1989 will culminate with a 'Festival of Freedom' at the Brandenburg Gate and the toppling of 1,000 giant dominoes.

   

  (Yahoo fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Orlin Pavlov entered the role of a bold corsair for a photo session

  
  08 June 2009
  

   

  Orlin Pavlov entered the role of a refined gentleman in a stylish photo session for a furniture company.
  
  The sparkling sea water, the beautiful smile and the light tones partner the young singer in the reconstitution of fairy summer mood. In some of the photos Orlin poses as sexy bold corsair.
  
  He had exotic adventure on the sea coast, managed by the photographer Ognian Geshev
  
  Orlin Pavlov is chosen for the photos, because he best describes the elegant, modern and sexy young man, who is suitable for presenting the mood of the fashion furniture and accessories.
  
  In some of the photos among with him is the stylish model of Exground Yana Grudeva.
  

  

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Pringle returns to London

  
  08 June 2009
  
  

  Pringle returns to London; Clare Waight Keller, Harold Tillman and Erin O'Connor Photo: ALISTAIR GUY

  Pringle of Scotland is the latest label returning to London Fashion Week for the brand’s 195th anniversary and the British Fashion Council’s (BFC) 25 year celebrations.

  The move, which was driven by Pringle of Scotland’s creative director Clare Waight Keller and new CEO Mary-Adair Macaire, will see the British brand return to London to show their Spring/Summer 2010 womenswear collection. They will join Burberry and Matthew Williamson, who have also announced their return to London this September.

  Creative director, Clare Waight Keller, said: '‘We are unbelievably excited about our move back to London, especially as this year our own anniversary coincides with the British Fashion Council’s 25th celebrations. It is a very exciting year for fashion in London and we’re proud to be returning to such a creative capital. As a British brand it is definitely an idea we’ve toyed with before, but this year provides the perfect opportunity to celebrate our British heritage and honour the BFC.’'

  Chairman of the British Fashion Council Harold Tillman, said: “We are delighted that Pringle of Scotland are returning to London for our 25th year celebrations. It is fantastic to have a brand with such a strong British heritage showing alongside our emerging stars such as Giles, Christopher Kane, Marios Schwab and Richard Nicoll.”

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion trends for summer: Shorts, sunglasses, hat, sandals for summer

  
  07 June 2009
  

  ummer

  Geometric-print silk scarf, £20

  Metal sunglasses, £10, (0845 121 4515).

  Straw hat, £28

  Leather gladiator sandals, £45

  And if you splash out on one thing...

  Denim jacket, £438

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

   

• 2009 fashion news - Heidi Klum was thrilled to get a 140-page Vogue special

  
  06 June 2009
  

  
  The German edition of the fashion bible devoted the massive section to the country's most famous supermodel when she guest edited the latest issue.
  
  She said: "I grew up reading German Vogue and was really excited when they came to me with the idea for the 'Heidi by Vogue' issue. It was a thrill working with the team of photographers, hair stylists, makeup artists and editors. We shot the entire issue in one week - it was a group effort!"
  
  The issue sees Heidi - who is married to singer Seal and currently expecting her fourth child - model a wide range of fashion styles and offer life, career and style tips, but she says she couldn't single out her favourite.
  
  She gushed: "I love all the stories so much that I don't favour any of them."
  
  The blonde beauty enjoyed the experience was so enjoyable she hopes to repeat it in future.
  
  She added to People.com: "I would love the opportunity to be involved in a magazine like this again. I'm always up for a challenge!"

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Kate Moss with an unusual American magazine cover

  
  06 June 2009
  

  By Fashion.bg   Published: 04/06/2009
  
  The Brittish top model Kate Moss made a striking appearance on the American "TAR" magazine's cover.
  
  The cover is made by one of the greatest modern Brittish artists Damien Hirst.
  
  The artist has "scarred" her face as if half of its skin is gone.
  
  This cover definitely won't be ignored. The message of the artist probably is that beneath the outside glamour we all have blood and muscles.
  
  That's not all, author James Fray has written a seven-page essay about the catwalk queen.
  
  Although she is no longer showing herself as a model, Kate still knows how to make people talk about her. Whether it's about her  Topshop collection or a new parfume, Moss is an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - The new photosession of Galinel Fashion House

  
  06 June 2009
  

  On June 27, fifty-member "Galinel" fashion house crew is going to distant Kapadokya, Turkey.

  It is located near the Syrian border and is famous for its unearthy rock formations, the untraditional way of life and adventurous enthusiasm preserved to our days.
  
  The reason for this trip is to shoot an advertising clip of the brand's new collection of bridal dresses, which is going to be on air for a month on the world fashion channel FTV.
  
  Having this, the fashion house will become the first Bulgarian brand to boost its own video clip, which will reach 193 countries and over 348 million viewers.
  
  The brand's new bridal dresses collection is extremely gorgeous and extravagant, and the crew has not chosen that ancient palace for no reason.

  

  

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Roberta Armani has praised the fashion sense of Katie Holmes

  
  06 June 2009
  

   

  The niece of Giorgio Armani - who is the director of public relations for the famous Italian fashion house - thinks more people should experiment with their clothes like the 30-year-old actress.
  
  Roberta said: "Don't be scared to be bold. My friend Katie Holmes wore some amazing bright blue shoes with an orange Armani Prive dress last year to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Gala in New York - she looked fantastic."
  
  Roberta's role in the fashion house is to recommend pieces to celebrities, in the hope of them wearing Armani gowns and suits to special events.
  
  As well as helping famous faces choose the perfect piece to complement their figure, she also gives tips on how to accessorise for an important night out.
  
  She explained to Britain's Grazia magazine: "Don't make too many statements. A show-stopping gown doesn't need major hair. Likewise, keep jewellery to a minimum. My uncle lives by the mantra 'less is more'. Look in the mirror and ask yourself, 'Is everything I have on performing a function? Is it all really necessary?' If not, remove it.
  
  "Don't rush getting ready, and keep a fragrance just for special occasions. I keep one aside for red-carpet moments. It adds to the drama and excitement of what is to come."

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Frida Giannini was named Fashion Designer of the Year at Glamour Women of the Year Awards

  
  06 June 2009
  

  
  The Italian fashion house's creative director won the accolade at the ceremony at London's Berkeley Square Gardens, where some of the world's most glamorous women were in attendance.
  
  Kylie Minogue stole the show by winning Entrepreneur of the Year and Woman of the Year and looked stunning in a black simple dress and animal print pashmina.
  
  Samantha Cameron - wife of British Conservative party leader David Cameron - was named Accessory Designer of the Year and attended the event with her husband.
  
  Newcomer of the Year Katy Perry dazzled in a satin strapless blue dress while Amanda Seyfried - who was named Film Actress of the Year - looked pretty in a loud-print dress.
  
  This is not the first award Frida was won recently.
  
  Earlier this week, she was named International Designer of the Year by Japan's Fashion Editor´s Club every year.
  
  It is the first time the prestigious award has gone to a woman. It coincided with Frida's current Asian tour, where she is promoting the brand in countries including Japan and Korea, and visiting a new Gucci store in China.

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Handbags belonging to Madonna, Eva Longoria and Dita Von Teese are being auctioned on eBay

  
  06 June 2009
  

   

  The stars donated their favourite bags to help raise money for victims of April's earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy.
  
  'Entourage' stars Adrian Grenier and Debi Mazar hosted a glamorous cocktail party at the LA Salvatore Ferragamo boutique to kick off the sale last night (02.06.09), where celebrities including John Legend, Rosanna Arquette, Rose McGowan and Melissa George got to view the articles listed in the sale.
  
  Stars were also be able to purchase clothing and accessories from the label's Spring/Summer range, with a portion of the evening's takings being donated to GlobalGiving's Italy Earthquake Relief and Recovery Fund.
  
  Bidding on the bags - complete with handwritten notes from their famous owners - has now begun and runs on the internet auction website until June 12.
  
  Jennifer Aniston, Demi Moore, Gwyneth Paltrow, Debi Mazar, Marisa Tomei, Lucy Liu, and Lily Tomlin have also donated their bags for the cause.
  
  Salvatore Ferragamo is not the only designer label keen to help earthquake victims.
  
  Gucci, Versace, Valentino, Brioni and Giancarlo Giammetti have also donated funds to the affected areas.
  
  Madonna has also helped the relief effort before, donating $500,000 shortly after the tremor struck.
  
  The '4 Minutes' singer reportedly requested the money be used in her father Silvio Ciccone's home region of Abruzzo.
  
  More than 200 people died and thousands more were left homeless by the 6.3 magnitude quake which hit the European country in April.

   

  (BGfashion fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Stow horse fair: gipsy fashion and horse trading

  
  05 June 2009
  
  

  From left, Barbara Nowell, Lianna Nolan, Mary Purcell and Kathleen Purcell Photo: TOBY GLANVILLE

  

  Katrina Cassidy with her daughter, Bridgie Photo: TOBY GLANVILLE

  

  A young gipsy girl Photo: TOBY GLANVILLE

  'I call myself a gipsy because that’s what I am. We live in trailers and have got about 20 horses. I grew up riding and I never use a saddle, so I’m natural to it, see? I know we’re different, but I wouldn’t want to be like you. I like standing out and I like being a gipsy.’

  

  Katrina Cassidy with her daughter, Bridgie Photo: TOBY GLANVILLE

  With that, April Freshwater, 14, turns away and screams encouragement to a man trotting a skinny black and white pony in a cart down the high street of Stow-on-the-Wold in Gloucestershire. 'Go on, Shawny,’ she says, and whistles as he rattles past, a clatter of hooves on tarmac. Watching him she grins, her lids heavy with eyeliner and big diamanté hoops glittering at her ears. It’s May and although there’s a sharp metallic chill in the wind and mud underfoot, she’s wearing a tiny, fluorescent-yellow vest, white pedal-pushers and bright yellow high heels. She doesn’t feel the cold, but even if she did she wouldn’t put a coat over her outfit. 'If I put a coat on I won’t stand out so well,’ she tells me. 'I like looking flashy. It’s my culture.’

  

  A young gipsy girl Photo: TOBY GLANVILLE

  Stow isn’t the sort of place normally associated with flashy dressing and extravagant displays of horsemanship, but April and Shawny don’t belong to Stow. Perched among the voluptuous undulations of the Cotswold hills, this market town grew rich in the Middle Ages from the local wool trade. Today it is chocolate-box pretty, famed for its mellow limestone streets lined with antique shops, book-dealers and tea rooms. This is England as toy town, although there’s real life in the form of a good butcher, a deli selling fancy bread and a well-stocked saddler, and because this is affluent Gloucestershire you’re very likely to see Elizabeth Hurley or Alex James popping into The Bell for lunch. It’s certainly very cute and very quiet, so tourists love Stow. But twice a year, in May and October, the town becomes a horse fair. Dating from 1476 when Edward IV granted the abbot of Evesham a royal charter, it attracts thousands of gipsies and traveller families from all over the British Isles.

  Not everyone in Stow welcomes the gipsies and there is some opposition to the fair. Detractors claim that the town has 'outgrown’ the fair and that it’s bad for its image as a tourist hot spot. Several of the shops and all the pubs will close for the fair day. 'It’s not that I necessarily think that they will steal,’ says one shop-owner, who preferred to remain anonymous. 'It’s just that it’s a good excuse to give my staff a day off, so we always shut up for the day of the fair.

  It’s just simpler.’ Gipsies have always had a reputation as the wild people of the world, of course, so this opposition is hardly surprising, and many residents view the fair with amused resignation. 'It’s colourful, you can say that at least,’ says one resident. 'The majority of us just accept it for what it is and know that there’ll always be the odd bad apple in the cart. And I think that some people are starting to realise that the fair is part of the town’s heritage, too, and should be valued for that.’

  For the gipsies the fair is a high point of their year. It’s ostensibly an opportunity for gipsy men to get together to trade horses, but it’s also a collective celebration of what it means to be a gipsy, and, freed briefly from the confines of trailer life, an excuse for the girls to really dress up. 'It’s our chance to show off,’ says Rosie Lamb, wearing a fluorescent outfit that co-ordinates with April’s. 'It doesn’t happen so often but we love it. All gipsy girls like showing off.’

  Rosie and April certainly stand out, but there’s stiff competition from the other girls, or, at least, from the girls who’ve not already found themselves husbands. Most will have planned their outfits for weeks; some will have had dresses made especially for the day, such as Kara O’Reily, in a black net skirt with hot-pink trimming, pink bustier and patent pink and black high heels. Her dad works on a tip and she lives on a site in Birmingham with her parents and five older brothers, Jimmy, Tommy, Peter, Matty and Paddy. At 13 she’s the youngest and her mother, relieved to have a daughter at last, has always enjoyed dressing her daughter. 'She wanted me to look good, you know? Wanted me to look the best.’

  Looking the best means slathering on layers of make-up, tottering around in vertiginously high heels, whatever the weather and however thick the mud, and squeezing their bodies, whatever their shape, into teeny bustiers or thigh-skimming dresses. Fluorescent colours are popular with the gipsy girls, but they love hot reds, crimsons and fake animal skins, too. Some of them are very beautiful, with deep dark eyes, shiny waist-length hair and enviable figures. Natalie Ward has travelled from Durham with her boyfriend Matt Howard. Wearing a short skating skirt with leopard-skin heels and a thick gold belt, she’s perfected a look to rival Victoria Beckham’s. 'I keep telling her she looks beautiful, because she does, don’t she? We’re getting married soon, start having kids and that,’ says Matt, a cage fighter and scrap dealer, laughing as his girlfriend blushes to her roots.

  'I’d like to have a big family,’ says Natalie. What does she dream of? 'Dream of? Just normal, I suppose. I like getting dressed up, getting to see my family and friends and that. It’s a chance to get out of the trailer. Most of my friends spend their time keeping the trailer clean and raising their family. That’s what every gipsy girl really wants to do. Raise kids and have a big family.’

  Raising a big family has always been a part of gipsy culture. Germaine Greer and her female eunuch definitely passed the gipsies by, because this is still a deeply patriarchal culture, in which men, with their wild horses and big arms and their pick-up trucks and greyhounds and fighting chickens, really are men. And the girls like it like that. Few of them work independently outside their family: they might help their dad with the horses now and again, but most shrug off suggestions that they might find employment. Why would they want to waste their time with that, after all? This is a traditional world, and despite their outrageous, garish costumes, the girls are surprisingly conservative in their ambitions.

  Natalie is appalled when I ask Matt if they live together and share a bed, and turns away. He laughs and shakes his head as I apologise. 'You embarrassed her. We’re not married yet, see, and the girls don’t talk about sex anyway. A gipsy boy wouldn’t want to go with a girl who had been to bed with someone else. There’s a lot of gipsy families in this country, and they tend to all intermarry. That way a man can know if a girl has been with another man. That’s the right way. They’re used to doing what their father or husband tells them, and they’re happy with it because it’s the way it should be.’

  One gets the sense that gipsy culture, far from being on the wane, is stronger than ever. This is partly down to evangelical Christianity, which has swept through their community over the past two decades. Traditionally, gipsies have tended to adopt the religion of the country in which they live. With the rise of evangelism in Britain, it’s perhaps not surprising that the gipsies, with their traditional values, would have welcomed it with such zeal. Several of the girls at the fair tell me to read John 3: 3 in which Jesus states, 'Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.’ There are several prayer meetings the night before the fair and on the day there’s a service in a big tent on the ground, crammed with suitably sparkling and colourful life-size Madonnas. At this service I meet Isabel Johnson, who is at the fair with her daughter Amadine, 24, a striking girl who drifts through the long grass in the field in a floor-length dress, a twist of turquoise at her throat. Isabel tells me that gipsy culture is becoming more, not less, traditional. 'It used to be the women who did most of the work, going out to sell pegs or picking fruit. We called the men kettle boilers because that’s all they did. But now we’ve been born again as Christians. It’s been good for our community. We’ve stopped selling heather and charms. We gave some things up for Jesus, but it’s kept us strong. The younger ones like the traditions, like cast-iron kettles and proper campfires. And the girls want big families again, and most of them will only marry another gipsy.’

  Amadine smiles when her mother says this. She’s here at the fair to find a man. 'I never want to marry out. I want a husband to be head of the family, and what he says is law, just like in the Bible.’ Is she happy, I ask. 'Happy?’ she says smiling, surprised that I’ve asked. 'I couldn’t be happier, my friend,’ she replies, then drifts off to help her father with his ponies.

  Amadine is not alone. None of the girls seems to crave fame or money or a big house. They want children, a nice trailer, a husband who treats them nicely and brings in the money. To the outsider this may sound intensely claustrophobic, but when you look at the girls cavorting around the fair together, falling in and out of each other’s trailers, minding each other’s children, comparing hair, make-up, husbands, it certainly looks like a culture mostly at ease with itself. It is celebratory. It looks good fun and the fun is generated by very strong family ties. The women like dressing their daughters up in satin and their sons in little old-fashioned tweed coats. They wheel them around in Silver Cross prams, before going off to buy Royal Doulton china for their trailers. None of them expresses a dissenting desire for anything different: it is what they’ve grown up with and it is the life they want for their daughters, too.

  Katrina Cassidy is at the fair with her sisters, Priscilla and Josie, and her daughter Bridgie, doll-like in pink satin with corkscrew curls and a pink fur wrap. A dark-eyed beauty with a lilting Irish accent and waist-length, dark hair, she describes herself as a full-time housewife, though she is proud of the fact that she stayed at school until she was 13 and can read and write. 'I want Bridgie to have the education I had, because a lot of these girls can’t read or write,’ she says. 'Now that’s not right, but I’m happy to be at home. Why would I want to work now I’ve got a baby? This is a good life. We were brought up as gipsies and we’ll always respect those traditions. Family matters to us most, but we love the chance to have a party.’

  Does she feel there’s anything she’s missing out on, I venture, such as the freedom to earn money for herself? Her face breaks into a big grin. 'Get away with ya! Why would I want that, now? I’m delighted to be a full-time housewife and I’m the one that gets to spend the cash, remember.’ Before she goes to find her husband she gives me the names of her brothers, Patrick and Andy Cassidy, who, she tells me, got through to the third round of the last X Factor. 'The boys have beautiful voices, so we’re really pleased for them.’

  I ask her if she sings and she laughs again. 'Of course I sing. All gipsies sing, but I’m told I have a real talent. But I chose to baby-sit the day of the audition, so what can I do? This is my life.’ With that she totters away through the grass in her studded mules, a blue fox-fur wrap around her shoulders, gold bracelets jangling at her wrists.

  There’s a visceral energy to Stow Fair that’s hard to ignore; it’s exhilarating, but by the end of the day I feel ragged and slightly emotional, too. I almost feel as if I’m missing out, and that it is I, with my bills and mortgage and work, who has got it wrong. It’s a deeply celebratory event and the girls I talk to look happier than most of my friends. On the way out I see April again, riding a big black horse. 'I’m selling him for me dad.

  I can do anything I want, see? I can work if I want, sell horses and that, but when the time comes to take a boy I’ll probably stay at home and raise kids and make the same promise that my mum made to my dad. It’s fun being a gipsy and sometimes I think that girls in normal culture want to be like us. We’ve got the life we want. Why should we want anything else?’

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Daisy Lowe: model daughter and face of DKNY and Marc Jacobs

  
  05 June 2009
  
  

  Daisy Lowe Photo: MATT JONES
  

  Lowe for Agent Provocateur last year; on the catwalk at London Fashion Week in February for PPQ

  As Daisy Lowe lopes down a street in the New York neighbourhood of Williamsburg she calls home, arm in arm with her boyfriend Will Cameron, she looks much like every other cool kid you pass (decked out in leggings and retro shades, clutching the lead of a small, fluffy dog) - albeit longer of leg and glossier of hair than your average NYC hipster.

  No one looks at her twice, and that’s just the way she likes it. In Britain her modelling career, rock ’n’ roll upbringing and headline-baiting love life have made her a bona fide celebrity and a regular tabloid fixture. In New York, she says, beaming, 'No one gives a –––– about me!’

  

  Daisy Lowe Photo: MATT JONES

  This, of course, is not strictly true. As the face of Marc by Marc Jacobs, DKNY and Pringle, Lowe is on her way to carving out the sort of singular modelling career of which most can only dream. But her move last year from London to New York – officially to help her fulfil her modelling potential – has also allowed her to step out of the media glare. It’s even given her the opportunity to act her age, not something she’s had much experience of in her short life. Perched in a booth in a retro diner round the corner from her new flat, hair tousled from the wind whistling off the East River, she explains: 'When I was growing up my mum moved us around a lot. We lived in about 16 different places, so I got used to jumping around. When Will moved out here we decided to find somewhere and make it a real home. This is actually the longest stint I’ve spent in a place without travelling for over three years, and it’s only been two and a half weeks! I’m really happy in New York. I just don’t really want to have to go anywhere else.’

  Occasionally, it’s hard to remember that Daisy Lowe is only 20 – she can be impressively grown-up and disarmingly naive in the same breath. In fashion magazines such as Italian Vogue and W, she projects a feline sensuality well beyond her tender years, but she still needs to talk to her mum, the fashion designer Pearl Lowe, every day; her favourite topics of conversation veer from buying a house and cooking the perfect macaroni cheese to playing with her new puppy and dressing up. She is great company – funny, self-aware and worldly wise – but also vulnerable and almost worryingly open. She will talk about drug abuse with the concern and disapproval of a parent, but then she giggles, and the braces on the back of her teeth flash, and suddenly she is 20 again, excited about living with her boyfriend in New York, playing songs with her friends and having painting parties.

  It’s a contradiction of which she is well aware. 'I think I’ll always be someone who worries about everyone else,’ she says. 'But in the past year I’ve done a lot of healing. I made a choice when I was very, very young that I was going to be an adult, and I never got to be a child because I always wanted to look after everyone else. What I’ve realised is key is being a mature adult but having an inner child, too, and that’s where you get the good balance. That way I can look after people but still have fun. It’s taken me 19 and a half years to work it out, but I’ve got there.’

  She was brought up in the north London borough of Camden by her mother, Pearl, once the singer with the Britpop bands Powder and Lodger, and her stepfather, Danny Goffey, the drummer in the band Supergrass. She talks lovingly of her parents and three younger siblings, but family life was far from settled, and not just because of touring schedules. Goffey and Pearl Lowe were linchpins of what the media came to call the Primrose Hill set, a gang of celebrities whose lives were packed with high-profile parties and constant tabloid attention. This reached fever pitch when Goffey and Lowe were accused of having wife-swapping sessions with Jude Law and Sadie Frost in 2001. Pearl has since cleaned up, moved her family to the countryside and written a tell-all memoir outlining the heroin and cocaine addiction that gripped her through this time.

  While Daisy insists Pearl was 'a wonderful, wonderful mother’, her drug addiction clearly had an impact on her daughter’s childhood. When Pearl’s second child, Alfie, was born it was Daisy, then seven, who woke with him every morning at five, gave him his bottle and looked after him until her mother rose much later. 'He’s my baby, really,’ she says smiling, seemingly unaware how sad this sounds.

  Daisy, who is extremely close to Pearl, maintains she didn’t know about her mother’s drug problem until after she had cleaned up. 'She was really lucky, because, if she had carried on for another year, I would have known. Looking back on it now, I can see exactly when she was high, but she also kept it from me very well.’

  To add to the turbulence of her childhood, until she was 15 Daisy had assumed that Pearl’s ex-husband, an American naturopath called Bronner Handwerger, was her father. After a paternity test it was proved that her father was actually yet another rock star, Gavin Rossdale of the band Bush, Pearl’s close friend, Daisy’s godfather, and Mr Gwen Stefani. While many in her position might have careered off the rails, Lowe seems to have responded by becoming ever more grown-up and responsible.

  As a teenager she became part of a scene as much simultaneously fawned over and eviscerated by the press as her parents’ had been. Made up of musicians, DJs and models, the gang hung out in Camden, too, and photographs of Lowe at parties appeared almost daily in the tabloids. But Lowe does not talk of this time fondly. Rather she describes the pressure of always being 'the sober one’, of worrying about and looking after her friends more than herself. She found it difficult when friends took drugs. 'I would always be the one to pick up the pieces, because I’d always be sober,’ she says. 'And I’d always have my head screwed on and know how to deal with it. I’d never judge people for taking drugs but, just because they’re in that dark place, doesn’t mean that I need to be dragged into it.’

  A fly-on-the-wall series on BBC Two, Class of 2008, documented the loves, lives and careers of Daisy and five of her friends, including Daisy’s move to America and the temporary break-up with Cameron it prompted. Lowe winces with embarrassment when it is mentioned. I get the impression that it epitomises what she is glad to have left behind in London – too much laid bare to the media, friendships in flux and a broken heart. After she broke up with Cameron, a musician, she had a brief romance with the music producer Mark Ronson, which got the tabloids salivating. Now she is back with her ex, and clearly smitten. She talks proudly about his music projects and grins as she explains how they both needed the break-up, but that now he treats her 'like a princess’. She misses only a handful of her group from London. She relies heavily on her mother, her boyfriend and her agent, and is learning to surround herself with a support system of friends who like her for more than just modelling.

  When it comes to modelling, Lowe is special because physically she breaks the mould; she might be tall, leggy and slender, but she’s also blessed with proper womanly curves that are as foreign to most models as lunar soil. Given how snobby the fashion industry can be about an ounce of excess flesh, and even the faintest whiff of celebrity, the quality and amount of work she continues to win are impressive. She has worked with fashion’s most celebrated photographers, from Juergen Teller to Steven Meisel to Steven Klein, and has walked the catwalk for Chanel, Vivienne Westwood and Burberry Prorsum – extraordinary given that she doesn’t fit into the tiny samples usually used for shows.

  For the first time in a long while, a model is managing to bring some real femininity to the industry. Her agent, Sarah Leon of Select Model Management, explains: 'When I found Daisy, age 15, she was not the model norm, but was incredibly gorgeous and charismatic. By most people’s expectations Daisy has the ideal body, but it’s taken the fashion business a while to accept her for what she is. I was adamant that she shouldn’t feel pressure to look skinny and bony.’ As Amy Molyneaux of the London fashion label PPQ succinctly puts it, 'Daisy is fashion as bombshell!’ For Clare Waight Keller, the creative director of Pringle, a mix of looks and personality made Lowe the right girl for their campaign. 'Daisy is ultra glamorous, but at ease with herself and has incredible sensuality,’ she says. 'In person she is a very cool girl – someone you really want to hang out with.’

  When we meet, Lowe is in the middle of attending castings for New York fashion week. It’s not something she relishes.

  'I went to one on Saturday, and there was a gaggle of about five 6ft Russian girls who all weigh about 6st, and I’m just not that breed of a woman. Fashion is supposed to be fun and beautiful. But so much of the time it depresses so many people, because they think, “We need to lose weight.” The female form is such a beautiful thing. It should be celebrated and not put down, that’s the only reason I agreed to do the shows. I said, “I’ll give it a go to see if they’ll hire some tits and arse. If they will, then great!”’

  That she says this while munching on an enormous sandwich, washed down with a strawberry milkshake, only makes it all the more endearing. She would love to do a Chanel campaign, and a beauty campaign, but says with youthful earnestness, 'My biggest ambition is to do really well, but keep being a nice person and not let it affect me. Then I can buy a house and bow out. I’m going to get old and wrinkly, and when I’m older I’m going to put on loads of weight, and I’m excited about it. I think it’s just really important to remember that you aren’t your face.’

  She is interested in acting and is enjoying making short films with friends, but also has more grown-up matters on her mind. Lowe is the same age that Pearl was when she became a mother. She and Cameron have talked about having children, though, sensible girl that she is, not just yet. 'I think that one of the reasons that I am on this planet is because I want to be a really good mother and I want to devote all my time to my kids. My mum did an amazing job of being able to be on tour and be with us, but it was difficult. I have never resented my mother, because we have the most amazing relationship, but I know that my way of parenting will differ from her in that I know I will want to be there.’

  Lunch over, Lowe strides off across the road, ready to charm her way through some more castings she would rather not be at and try to change the perspective of another small portion of the fashion industry. But what she’s really looking forward to is what happens after that – getting home to the much more important business of being with her boyfriend, playing with her dog and perfecting her recipe for macaroni cheese.

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Missoni to open new hotel in Edinburgh

  
  05 June 2009
  
  

  A suite at the Hotel Missoni.

  Juxtaposed against the intricate architecture and rich historic setting of Edinburgh's Old Town, Hotel Missoni sits in sleek, minimalist splendour, quietly waiting for its doors to open on June 8. With a prime location in the Scottish capital – it sits on the corner of George IV Bridge and the Royal Mile – it’s the first ever hotel for the long-established Italian fashion house.

  The Missoni label was founded in 1953 by Rosita Missoni and her husband Tai and is famous for its vibrantly-coloured, patterned designs which are emblazoned on everything from knitwear to bikinis. The brand first branched out with a homeware range 10 years ago.

  Rosita, who is creative director of the venture, says the idea for Hotel Missoni came from a close friend who introduced her to the Rezidor Group. The group is one of the fastest growing hotel companies in the world and masterminded the whole operation.

  But why Edinburgh and not the sun-drenched fashion-hubs of Milan, say, or Rome?

  Rosita reveals: "Edinburgh was the first offer we received. We thought it had all the qualities for a good start. City of charm, history, tradition, culture, and the prestigious location of The Royal Mile."

  The result is a simple but stylish hotel arranged over six floors, punctuated with splashes of bright colour which are unmistakably Missoni in style (rainbow-coloured bedspreads and colourful mosaic-tiled bathrooms). The hotel will even be scented using a Missoni fragrance.

  And plans are already in the pipeline for the next Hotel Missoni: Kuwait City will be receiving a style injection courtesy of Rosita and her team later this year.

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)

• 2009 fashion news - Iekeliene Stange interview: ripping yarns

  
  05 June 2009
  
  

  Iekeliene Stange Photo: ALIX MALKA

  Iekeliene Stange, 24, says she had little interest in fashion before she was scouted five years ago. She has featured in advertising campaigns for Marc by Marc Jacobs, Dolce & Gabbana, Sonia Rykiel and Burberry, and has appeared on the catwalk for Chanel, Christian Dior and John Galliano.

  She can sometimes be spotted cycling through London wearing a huge floppy hat, adorned with a giant sunflower.

  I like to dress with humour. I don’t follow fashion trends, I make up my own. At the moment I’m rocking a baroque style, with belted jackets and lots of scarves, inspired by the costumes in the Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York.

  I dream of living in a cottage and having a vegetable garden. I moved to London four years ago to study photography, but I couldn’t really afford the college fees, so I started modelling to build up some financial stability. One day I’d like to live a rural life and spend my time taking pictures.

  When I was first scouted I had red dreadlocks. I was going through quite a funky stage. Apparently the model agency thought the scout was crazy for bringing me to the office, but they took me on in the end.

  The only way to travel is by bicycle. I own five bikes. My problem is that I always buy vintage bikes that look pretty but are not so good for cycling around London in a rush.

  I take photographs backstage at the shows. I have had them published in Japanese Harper’s Bazaar and a fashion magazine called Muse. It makes hanging around waiting to go on the catwalk a lot more fun, and when you are at a show like Galliano, the models look amazing.

  I have always been quite crafty. Ever since I was a child I have made patchwork things and tutus, and most recently I spent two months attempting to knit a 3D pony for an exhibition of my photographs at the Horse Hospital gallery in London, but in the end it proved too difficult and ended up just being a flat wall decoration.

   

  (Telegraph fashion news)